Plugging Some Holes With a Handwave or Two
by LineApe
Summary: When an author 'Handwaves' something, that means they plug a plot hole with a flimsy explanation. JKR loves doing this, but sadly, she doesn't do it well. Shall I plug those holes myself? Well, I'll do my best at least. Oneshots, Twoshots.


AN: This story will be a collection of what are known as _'handwaves'_ and _'lampshade hangings'_. Essentially, I intend to explain or warp the Harry Potter universe in certain ways to make all the plot holes and inconsistencies in JKR's books go away.

First off, is the question of, "How could a bumbling Idiot like Fudge ever become the leader of a nation?"

Well then, perhaps the answer is that he's _not_ a complete idiot? It's all about your viewpoint.

* * *

The man sat idly by, moping and brooding into his half-empty lukewarm drink; lukewarm, not because it had somehow lost its ice cold chill, but rather because the damn thing came that way.

Only the most mediocre of bars could claim that they served room temperature beer, but the Hogs Head was rarely even described as mediocre. In most cases, a witch or wizard would walk into the bar and then promptly walk back out.

In other words, the place was a dump.

The windows were tinted, not due to some aesthetic choice by the owner but because the windows were covered in decades of dust and grime. The greasy floors could be described in a similar way.

Years of neglect left the paint peeling of the walls, and of those few walls lucky enough to have any paint remaining at all were on the verge of being as naked as their bare brethren.

If the place was in such a state of disrepair, then the logical question to ask was, 'Why would anyone choose to drink there?'

Well, to get drunk of course.

There's always someone looking to get drunk. With what was going on that night, it was especially full.

When wallowing in despair, it's only after a few beers that one normally stops caring about the taste. For all the man knew, he could have been drinking motor oil and he wouldn't have cared. As long as it got the job done.

No, Harry stopped caring about the taste after the first foul sip of the awful brew.

He sat on the stool with his right hand firmly clenched on the mug, and with his head resting on his left arm.

Without giving much away, it could easily be inferred that he was not in a great mood.

"The Ministry's going to shit," he mumbled into his arm.

To anyone aside Harry, it didn't sound like much at all.

"What you say, mate?" the bulky man beside him slurred.

Harry lifted his head up for the first time in the last ten minutes and gulped back the rest of his drink in one fell swoop. He motioned to the barkeep and waved at his empty glass.

Abe the barman rolled his eyes and walked into the back room.

Harry looked to the side and saw his redheaded friend looking at him expectantly. "I said, 'The Ministry's going to shit," he repeated in a far more clear voice.

The man, with far too much drink in his system, simply nodded and took a swig of his firewhiskey. He too was in the mood to get drunk, but the so-called beer was far too repugnant for his tastes. Who knew Ron Weasley had standards on what he would eat or drink?

"Language, Harry," the bushy haired woman half-heartedly chastised from the other side of her very drunk husband. Harry may have been drunk, but _Ron_ was completely hammered.

"It's _bullshit_ though! How is it even _possible_ that Fudge is ahead in the polls?" he snarled.

"I don't know, Harry. It doesn't make any sense to me either."

Ron didn't have an opinion because he was too busy drooling on the counter. Out cold.

Clang.

Harry looked away from Ron and Hermione, and looked in front of him where not seconds before he had heard a noise.

His beer.

How the old man always managed to deliver the drinks without ever being seen was a well discussed mystery, but Harry was too riled up to voice his theory on the subject.

Time-turner or not, it wasn't worth the effort.

He drank a mouthful of the vile concoction, and winced as the stuff went over his already sufficiently abused taste buds. Well, at least the price was right. There was of no other place he could imagine where he could acquire a two sickle pint.

But really, when you go to the Hogs Head, you get what you pay for, that's for damn sure.

Cheapest beer in town? Yes. Shittiest tasting beer is town? _God_ yes.

With the lingering taste in his mouth, he wondered if it was even _beer_ at all, but he didn't care.

Another mystery for another day, but he quickly dropped the thought.

Today held its own problems.

He took another mouthful and dropped the glass onto the counter with a loud bang. "I mean, for fuck sakes, he has to have been the worst Minister in the _history_ of the position!" he shouted for the entire bar to hear.

Behind him, a pair of middle aged men – Both of them nursing their own drinks and sitting next to a Wireless – were having a couple of drinks of their own. Not as brave (or stupid) as their savior, they both had a pair of glasses with a bottle of Ogden's Finest sitting between them.

When they heard the boy's loud proclamation, they both rolled their eyes. One man, overweight and sporting glasses, laughed, while the other, a balding man with a fluffy mustache said, "Kids these days are so fucking stupid." He let out a hearty belly laugh himself.

He was going to leave it at that, but when the young man turned around on his stool and shouted, "What, are you a fucking _Fudge_ supporter? You're just another muggle hating pureblood!" He got a tad upset.

The larger man with the glasses laughed even harder, and between breathes said, "Too right John, _fucking_ stupid. Want me to take this one?"

"No, no. I can handle this little shit, Thorin," John said before turning himself to the bar, "First off, _boy_, I'm a _muggleborn_. If you're going to insult a man, try and use the proper term." He cleared his throat. "Secondly, yes, I support Fudge."

Harry ignored most of what the man said and just carried on, "Oh? So then you just support his plan to drop the Auror force by _half_ then? Mandatory werewolf registration? Jail time for any caught refusing? The man's a bigot! We can see how well it turned out last time with Fudge at the wheel. Why the hell would we want him in control again?"

Harry punctuated his argument with a swig of the 'beer', and immediately regretted it.

Shit tasted like… Well, he'd never in his life tasted urine, knock on wood, but that's how he imagined it tasted.

"Maybe because he's a good man? And what, you _want_ werewolves free on the full moon?" He waved to someone entering the bar. "Also, it's not jail time for refusing the _registration_, you nitwit, it's jail time for refusing _Wolfsbane_! It's just a fine otherwise. Personally, and this is just me, but I'm perfectly alright with jailing anyone who wishes to turn into a mindless beast once a month without any safeguards. At least _that_ way we can make sure he or she doesn't' infect someone or worse, kill someone." He took a breath. "Do you have children? Wait, forget I asked. You look to young; that and any other parent would agree with me on this point. Well, as a parent, let me tell you: I'd sleep a hell of a lot better if my little girl could be even a _little_ safer at night."

Harry mentally conceded that the man had a point, but he wasn't exactly going to say that. Lowered inhibitions let him go right back on the attack. "What, no response to the Auror division downsizing? We need them! What happens the next time a Dark Lord comes around?"

"Oh for heaven's sake, why does it always come back to the war with you types? Look, there are less than ten thousand wizards in Britain, why the _hell_ do we need six hundred Aurors in peace time?" He threw his arms up in the air in a show of frustration. "I mean, I know he needed the manpower to help hunt down all the death-eaters, but why the _fuck_ was he hiring kids directly out of Hogwarts?"

Harry shuffled in his seat. That's how he got _his_ job. "Because—"

The man felt no need to let the boy spew out his misinformed garbage. "I'll tell you why! Shacklebolt is an _Auror_, and _Aurors_ take care of their own!" He pointed his finger at Harry and carried on, "And another thing; Auror training is expensive boy, where does the money come from?"

When Harry had no answer, John looked at his friend who happily chimed in. "The WST!" the chubby man said.

"The _fucking_ WST!" the man shouted.

"I think the WST is reasonable…" Harry muttered.

He slammed his fists down on the table. "That's because you're an _idiot_! An added fifteen percent tax on goods and services?" He raised his voice even higher. "Right after a _war_? When we're barely able to afford the rebuilding of our society for the second time in twenty years that _idiot_ wants to expand the Auror corps?"

Harry was kind of losing things to argue, once again the man had valid points. So instead of conceding defeat like any sane (or sober) man would do, he instead pulled the Voldemort card. "Well Fudge is an idiot and a coward! He was wrong about Voldemort! Shacklebolt risked his career and his life to fight in the war!"

"Fudge did the best he could with the information he had. Regardless of what you may think, there were absolutely no clues of You-Know-Who's return at the time, and clearly Fudge didn't feel the need to jump at shadows just because an old man and a teenager said there were bad guys hiding in them." He took a sip of his drink while he thought up what to say next. "Fudge wasn't a wartime leader, which I'll admit. And I'll also admit that Shacklebolt did a bang-up job at managing the hunt for the Death eaters, but why would we want to have a wartime leader when we're at peace? Hell, Winston Churchill is considered one of the best British Prime Ministers of all time, but what happened to him after the war? He lost, that's what. The voters wanted someone who knew how to rebuild a nation. You don't make a _soldier_ build your house; you get a _carpenter_ to do it."

"So what, Fudge is a carpenter now?"

"Yes. Not literally, but figuratively, yes he is. The first war was _clearly_ before your time, so you don't understand how bad it was. Seven hundred people died then, and most of the wizard infrastructure was destroyed by You-Know-Who in an attempt to cripple the Ministry's resistance. Fudge rebuilt our nation through sound fiscal planning, and good policy making. Contrast that to this most recent war. Less than a hundred died, and there was not nearly the same amount of damage done. Fudge did in three years what Shacklebolt has failed to do in the last four. Why do I support Fudge? Because not everything is about _war_, and when you vote for your leaders you vote for what is _needed_ at the time!"

Harry sat stunned on his stool. His fuzzy mind could formulate nothing to argue. That was a lot of information to take in. He looked to Hermione and saw her basically telling him to shut the hell up with her eyes.

The mostly ignored Wireless on the men's table came to life. "And the results are in folks! We have ourselves a new Minister! Well, not new, but anyways Fudge is back! In a landslide—" The rest of the announcement was drowned out by the cheering at most of the tables in the establishment.

Outside, the sound of what appeared to be fireworks went off.

Once the cheers had calmed down some, the man looked Harry in the eye.

"Look kid, my friend and I are going to share a drink and toast to the man of the hour. If you have a problem with that, then get the hell out."

Harry, now properly chastised and schooled in how wizard politics _really_ worked, decided to just call it a loss and leave. He dropped a handful of sickles on the bar's counter and walked out of the establishment.

He apparated home, and dropped unceremoniously onto his bed.

As he lay there trying to sleep off the alcohol, all he could think about was what the man had said. Was Fudge actually a good leader?

Harry tossed and turned that night.

* * *

AN: Now, I wouldn't want to go and say Fudge was an amazing leader (he's not, in canon he's a complete idiot), but the whole Idea of this fic is to close plot holes, and that's the only way I could imagine Fudge ever becoming a leader, and it makes sense to me.

If you guys like this, then I'll get some more up.

An update to Darkly Dreaming Harry will come next, the chapter is mostly complete.

-Lineape

Edit: I reread it and saw some serious punctuation and grammatical errors, so… yeah.

I also shifted a few words around and added a sentence or two here and there.

Later!


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